Tons of of stars sparkle in opposition to the darkish backdrop of space in a brand new picture from the Hubble Space Telescope.
This glittering group of stars, often called NGC 2660, is positioned 8,617 light-years from Earth within the constellation of Vela. NGC 2660 is assessed as an open star cluster — a sort of star cluster that may comprise wherever from tens to a couple lots of of stars loosely certain collectively by gravity, in response to a NASA statement (opens in new tab).
“The celebs of open clusters kind out of the identical area of gasoline and dust and thus share many traits, corresponding to age and chemical composition,” NASA officers stated within the assertion. “Not like globular clusters — their historic, denser, and extra tightly-packed cousins — open clusters are simpler to check since astronomers can extra simply distinguish between particular person stars.”
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The celebs of an open cluster can vary in age from a couple of tens of tens of millions or lots of of tens of millions of years previous. Because the clusters are solely loosely certain by gravity, the celebrities could disperse after a couple of million years into the encompassing spiral or irregular galaxies by which they have been born, in response to the assertion.
The latest Hubble picture, which NASA shared on Nov. 29, 2022, captures lots of of stars scattered throughout the constellation, which could be best viewed within the southern sky. The brilliant pink object within the higher left of the picture is a foreground star that’s not a part of the open star cluster.
Hubble noticed NGC 2660 as a part of a program to check the ages of white dwarf stars in open clusters. The celebs captured within the picture are surrounded by diffraction spikes, which happen when the intense mild from the celebrities displays off of the space telescope’s secondary mirror assist.
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